Who were the actual criminals that sparked the refugees’ revolt in Villawood detention centre in late April? There is no crime in climbing on top of a building and holding a banner saying “We need help”, nor asking for a meeting with immigration officials after 15 months in detention, as two Kurdish Iranian refugees did on April 20, sparking protests that lasted for more than a week.
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The ALP took government on the back of the “Your Rights At Work” campaign. But Labor has failed to “rip up” the Howard government’s Work Choices laws.
Australian Industry Group boss Heather Ridout told the 2011 HR Nichols Society conference: “There were many positive elements of the previous [Coalition] government’s workplace relations laws that have been retained by the Labor government.”
I began writing this as a reply to a worker infected by the ideological disease that could be called today’s version of “the socialism of fools”.
That was the name given by German socialists at the end of the 19th century to the irrational, bigoted and eventually genocidal idea that Jews were to blame for the plight of oppressed and exploited workers.
Today’s “fools” in Australia blame asylum-seekers and refugees, especially those of Muslim faith or who come from the Middle East.
The Greens Mayor of Marrickville Council Fiona Byrne gave the speech below at the Unions NSW May Day toast at the Cypress Community Club in Stanmore on April 28.
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I acknowledge we meet tonight on the traditional land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and pay my respects to elders both past and present.
Those who don’t read the Oz or Tele, or don’t listen to shock jock radio, I’m the controversial Greens Mayor of Marrickville.
For many people, gambling merely fulfils a short-term desire to be entertained. Yet for an estimated 2.3% of Australian adults, it has become a compulsion; an uncontrollable addiction which largely affects their personal, social and financial life.
Over the past decade, the gambling industry in Australia has expanded significantly.
Currently, every state and territory within Australia has at least one casino operating within its jurisdiction, offering various gambling options, including poker and gaming machines, to anyone over the legal age of 18.
WikiLeaks released a new slew of secret US military documents on April 24 relating to the US off-shore detention facility Guantanamo Bay. were released by WikiLeaks and its media partners as 779 documents that dealt specifically with detainees.
The documents included classified assessments, interviews and internal memos written by the Pentagon’s Joint Task Force at Guantanamo marked “secret” and “noform” — no information to be shared with representatives of other countries.
"This is the battle for the end of the fossil fuel industry. This is the end game," Lock the Gate Alliance campaigner Drew Hutton told a forum, titled, Australia's Gas Rush: The race to save our farmland and the Great Artesian Basin, on April 14 in Brisbane.
The forum, sponsored by 鶹ӳ Weekly, also heard from Ewan Saunders, climate campaigner and Socialist Alliance activist.
“What changed in Palestine between December and April that made you change your mind?” yelled someone in the crowd, as the April 19 Marrickville Council meeting voted to overturn its previously stated support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against apartheid Israel.
Despite many others asking similar questions, none of the councillors that had voted in favour for the December 14 motion answered this simple question.
"I have recently had the opportunity to witness important developments in the Bolivarian Revolution," Nelson Davila, Venezuelan ambassador to Australia, just returned from a three-week visit to his homeland, told a forum sponsored by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) in Brisbane on April 20.
"There have been big developments in agriculture, mainly aimed at maintaining and improving the ecosystem, through expansion of eco-socialist co-operatives," Davila told the forum.
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